As someone who loves words, I try to keep up with the “Lexicon Valley” podcasts and articles at Slate.com — and today they wheel out a good one for OC readers (and it includes a transcript as well.) It’s on the political language of immigration — well, not “immigration,” actually, because that includes legal immigration done through proper channels in which temporary or permanent residency status is maintained — and there already you can see the problem. It’s on what opponents of non-legal presence in the U.S. call “illegal aliens” (or sometimes “illegal immigrants”) and what their defenders call “undocumented workers” (or sometimes “undocumented immigrants.”) As a prominent conservative county close to the Mexican border and on the Pacific shore, OC has often been in the middle of the national debate over immigration.

I don’t like either of the commonly used terms noted above. “Illegal alien” is worse, because it depicts people who play a large part in the life of our country (and especially our region) entirely by their immigration status — and because it conflates the technical meaning of “alien” with the colloquial meaning of “not part of us” — which, walk around if you want to, ain’t so.

Lots of people do lots of things that are illegal. I know few freeway drivers in OC who are not “illegal” in that they routinely violate the traffic laws (most obviously against speeding.) Even so, we would not call them “illegal drivers,” let alone simply referring them by the noun “illegals.” (But isn’t there a difference between speeding and being in the U.S. without citizenship or visa? Sure there is: speeding is a criminal act, while being in the U.S. without proper status is merely a civil violation. The former also kills more people than the latter.)

While I like neither part of “illegal alien,” I’m also no fan of the clunky phrase “undocumented workers.” First, many of the people in the category are not “workers,” but children, unemployed, retirees, non-working spouses, convicts, etc. The word “workers” is chosen because “work” is good and respectable; but it’s a foolish choice because it leads directly to a narrative of “stealing our jobs.” As for “undocumented,” the problem is not that people don’t have papers demonstrating legal residency status (and in fact some of them do, though they’re forged), but that they are not currently entitled to them. To me, the phrase comes off as a failed PR exercise — and most people who aren’t devoted to it can see through it.

So, if not “illegal alien” nor “undocumented worker,” what does one call these people who are here in the U.S. despite having neither citizenship nor active (and unexpired and unforfeited) visa status or no need for visa due to their own citizenship? Funny, that came up in the podcast — and it’s the first time that I can remember hearing someone besides myself use the “neutral term” that I think actually does fit the category.

Let’s go to the transcript, in which linguist Mike Vuolo is speaking to radio broadcaster Bob Garfield:

[F]or me, “illegal” appears within the larger context of a kind of dehumanizing language around this issue. That’s one really important point for me. The second is that I think calling a group of people “illegal” for coming to this country for work totally ignores and obscures, I think, the role that companies and the government has played in recruiting this labor. I mean we saw that in 1920. We saw it with the Bracero Program. We’ve seen it in more recent times when corporations are encouraged to sort of look the other way because they want cheap labor. You know, for those two reasons alone, that’s enough to sort of knock me off the fence and look for a different word. And you know I asked Jonathan Rosa, what’s the alternative? And he mentioned “unauthorized” as a possible term that isn’t politically charged. And if fact the day after the election I was reading the New Yorker online and they listed a number of sort of policy proposals and issues that they thought Obama would try to tackle in his second term, one of which was immigration reform. And they said that the goal should be to “pass the DREAM Act. Make a deal with Republicans on a comprehensive immigration bill that includes a path to legalization for unauthorized immigrants.”

BOB: Mm-hmm.

MIKE: And I thought, well, you know, I think I could live with that word.

BOB: And to me that is the “differently abled” of immigration policy. It doesn’t even mean anything. It’s so expansive. Unauthorized? What does it mean you don’t have a pass to get backstage? Ehhh. I think that gets to the very nub of why it is very dangerous to try to use linguistic revisionism as a means to pursue social policy. It just kind of misses the point and bastardizes language and obscures meaning. So, I think your argument has made me solidify mine.

MIKE: I actually don’t think we’re all that far apart on this Bob, because I think that while you understand the sort of dehumanizing effect of casting an entire population as “illegal” and how that term then becomes associated with Mexicans whether they’re citizens or not, and I understand that it’s important to call things by their name, we can sort of touch hands right across the fence here. So maybe we’ll throw this out to our listeners and ask them. Tell us what you think. Has this word “illegal” become far too stigmatized for the various points that I’ve made or does it remain accurate and useful for the points that Bob has made. You can write to us at slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com.

(This follows a longer discussion, of which the portion just prior to this (too much for me to quote) is especially interesting, as it deals with the metaphors people use for this category in our verbal communications. I really do recommend checking it out, maybe during some free time over Thanksgiving.)

The term that I’ve been pushing for years is “unauthorized resident.” Why? Because it’s perfectly descriptive. The people in question reside here: often for work, sometimes to be with their families, sometimes because it’s the only home they’ve known. (They’re often here for far less time than the term “immigrants” implies.) And what they lack is the legal authorization to do so. They are, to use the most appropriate legal model, trespassing: present in a place they’re not supposed to be. And sometimes trespassing is tolerated, sometimes it becomes licensed, sometimes it is deterred, and sometimes it is punished. (Among the punishments for it is sometimes summary execution — you know, being shot on sight — but that is generally illegal and even when not illegal is generally, although not universally, considered horrible and disgusting.) I think that that’s the model we want.

I’ve used that term at least twice here before now, eliciting negative comments from conservatives both generally respectable and downright weird. (“AHHHHHHH!”) With another immigration debate in Congress right around the corner, I’m interested in what you all think of this approach.

“The unauthorized resident immigrant population is defined as all foreign-born non-citizens who are not legal residents. Most unauthorized residents either entered the United States without inspection or were admitted temporarily and stayed past the date they were required to leave. . .”

About Greg Diamond

Prolix worker's rights and government accountability attorney. General Counsel of CATER, the Coalition of Anaheim Taxpayers for Economic Responsibility, a non-partisan group of people sick of local corruption.
Deposed as Northern Vice Chair of DPOC in April 2014 when his anti-corruption and pro-consumer work in Anaheim infuriated the Building Trades and Teamsters in spring 2014, who then worked with the lawless and power-mad DPOC Chair to eliminate his internal oversight.
Runs for office sometimes, so far to offer a challenge to someone nasty who would otherwise have run unopposed. Someday he might pick a fight intending to win it rather than just to dent someone. You'll know it when you see it.
None of his pre-putsch writings ever spoke for the Democratic Party at the local, county, state, national, or galactic level.
A family member works part-time as a campaign treasurer. He doesn't directly profit from that relatively small compensation and it doesn't affect his coverage. (He does not always favor her clients, though she might hesitate to take one that he hated. He does advise some local campaigns informally and generally without compensation. If that changes, he will declare the interest.
He also runs a less frequently published blog called "The Brean," for his chosen hometown, where he is now fighting with its wealthiest and most avaricious citizen-donors. This just seems to be his way.

“But isn’t there a difference between speeding and being in the U.S. without citizenship or visa? Sure there is: speeding is a criminal act, while being in the U.S. without proper status is merely a civil violation.”– GD

*It goes like this: In the good/bad old days – Immigrants filled out an Alien Card every January 1st of the year. It listed their name, address and phone number. If they failed to file a Alien Resident Card each year……by June 1st they could be deported, fined or both.

Getting people into the system is the most important part of any Immigration solution. If folks live here and want to become Citizens after Five Years, can read and right 4th grade English and can find a Citizen that wants to be the Mentor for that person….bring them on.

Any system should start with simply filing a Resident Alien Card. Immigration would then contact them by mail and ask them to fill out the appropriate forms for Application of a Green Card. Families should file together.

The only folks that would be fined or deported would be those that failed to Report.
This is not Brain Surgery…or Space Science Trajectory Applications.. It is called:
Common Sense. Doing it the right way and through the Federal Legal System.

As far as I am concerned President Obama’s leading ranks of voters were the majority of those who are classed as “Freeloaders’”? Not the elderly, not the handicapped or infirm, but those who have learned to play the welfare system. They are also the people who think adding to the most incredulous deficit Washington has ever wrought, with Obama striding out the most insane definition of a free ride for everybody. One of Obama’s plans placed before the Republicans today was a blank check, to continuing the spending disaster.We cannot even pay the advancing U.S. treasury bills, let alone more additional trillions of dollars this administration has in mind. Yet this Congress could do much more, such as restricting illegal aliens with children literary stealing 4.2 Billion dollars annually in child tax credits and the IRS completely ignoring such outlandish behavior. In that this year alone illegal alien families could benefit under the “ADDITIONAL CHILD CREDIT” loophole for the sum of 7.4 Billion, even when in many occasions the child or children live outside the jurisdiction of the United States. “Citizens against Government Waste” a non-profit research organization have pinpointed hundreds of billions of dollars in overlapping agencies in government, both doing the same thing and many other wasteful taxpayer dollars going down the proverbial government drain. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AR) co-sponsored a bill earlier this year to bar illegal immigrants from receiving tax credits, but the bill was blocked from reaching the floor by Nevada Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

WE WOULD NEVER HAVE HAD THIS PROBLEM OF ETHNIC MAJORITY DEMOGRAPHICS, IF OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS WAS ENFORCED AT THE BORDERS, INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TERMINALS AND OTHER PORTS OF ENTRY?

Yet President Obama wants even more money from hardworking taxpayers. Instead of pandering to illegal aliens—not legal immigrants or permanent residents, his Socialist party and the Republicans as well should vote into law “THE LEGAL WORKFORCE BILL” However this electronic business employment verification program should be unilateral between parties, it should shuffle illegal aliens out of the limited job market? The GOP just voted for more visas for high skilled workers of the STEM Variety (Scientists, Technology, Engineers and Math) So American taxpayers should lean on the Democrats and Republicans to revise the 2006 Secure Fence Act, but complete the circuit by making it a felony to enter this sovereign country. American taxpayers should demand both the Legal Workforce Act and the Birthright Citizenship bill, we will not only discourage further invasion from foreign countries, but will inhibit another need for a DREAM ACT in our future. As for a labor shortage in the field, it should be orderly and heavily regulated and absconders who came here for Agjobs, who run off should be heavily held accountable, including the visitor visor overstays who must be tracked. It will also send a signal to people across the globe, that they are not welcome here illegally anymore and we are not going to distribute welfare to them.

As an additional impediment we the American People should be demanding passage of the “Birthright Citizenship Bill” so that pregnant illegal alien mothers cannot take advantage of our public entitlement programs unless one parent is already a U.S. citizen. No baby or young child cannot be given a free U.S. citizenship unless this rule is verified.. This unrealistic law was originally for the emancipation of slaves at the end of the civil war and hasn’t been adapted for this century and costs American taxpayers $113 billion dollars. Its ill conceived when citizens are the homeless and living on our dangerous streets and illegal aliens can collect welfare payments for babies and low income housing. Entitlements for the illegal poor have sky rocketed, as well as the human parasites that live amongst us feeding of our taxes. Just judge California’s “open Door” policy mess of a growing huge deficit. Of course people who can get something for nothing, is going to vote for the “entitlement” President that has allowed his czars to give out “food stamps” like candy and free cell phones.

A few prudent taxpayers are ignored, but if we approach the feds and state politicians in mass, they had better start listening to the core. We can no longer accept paying for shirkers, the spongers and illegal aliens or anybody who threaten this great counties prosperity?

From Stephen Frank website at California News & Views on 11/30/2012

California is in a Depression. Some are trying to make believe massive Federal and State tax increases, unions; illegal aliens a non happening to the “recovery”. “Over the past decade, the state has lost ground in employment and taxable income to economic rivals, especially Texas. Internal Revenue Service data show that California lost more than $4 billion in personal income to Texas from 2000 to 2010. Nevada netted more than $5.6 billion at California’s expense. Arizona gained nearly $5 billion. For a state that depends heavily on the personal income tax, these losses are significant. They also point to broader problems in the state’s business climate. People tend to move mainly for economic reasons, such as jobs or cost of living.”

IF YOU WANT THE TRUTH OF THE CHAOS THIS COUNTRY IS IN, DON”T EXPECT THE LEVEL TRUTH FROM THE MAINSTREAM LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE PRESS OR MEDIA. DELVE INTO THE INTERNET, BECAUSE THE REAL FACTS ARE THERE AND AVAILABLE?